


Revelations in Green

by ladyoneill



Category: Smallville
Genre: Cave-In, Concussions, Green Kryptonite, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 08:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6603685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoneill/pseuds/ladyoneill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's in pain.  They're trapped.  Someone did this to them, hurt them both, all to...kill Clark?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revelations in Green

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Martianico](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martianico/gifts).



> My recipient gave me an intriguing prompt, a what-if older Lex came back in time to try to kill teenage Clark, and current Lex, before everything went wrong between them, finds out the truth. Obviously older Lex fails at everything. So, this is set sometime in the early years, when Lex is a bit suspicious, but not angry or frustrated by Clark's lies, after the caves have been found, but...not really canon compliant. Hopefully still enjoyable. It's pre-relationship, but heading that way, and I didn't label it underage as the age of consent in Kansas is sixteen and Clark's at least that old.

"I'm sorry."

Those plaintive words break through the pain in his head, the fog in his brain. They're whispered over and over.

Maybe have been for a while.

He tries to move and his head explodes in agony. He wants to scream but can only gasp out a groan.

"Lex?" Hope and fear and worry echo in the young voice.

So young.

He wants to open his eyes, but the pain reverberates through his skull at just the thought. A big, gentle hand brushes against his cheek, lingers at his jaw.

No callouses.

How can a farm boy have no callouses?

"You're hurt, Lex. I...I got the bleeding to stop, but you probably have a concussion, and we're trapped. It's...I can't get us out." 

Now the voice is sorrowful, echoing with guilt.

What happened to him? Why the pain and the darkness? Because even with closed eyes, there should be light from the strings of electronic lanterns, their own flashlights.

They were in the caves. He remembers. His mind is still fuzzy, everything hurts, but they were in the caves and there was...was...someone.

Cold eyes in a broader but too familiar face. Bitten threats from tight, cruel lips. An expensive suit and a gloved hand holding a polished green rock.

Clark crumpling to the ground in pain.

He himself rushing forward to protect, to fight off the attacker, the...him.

It was him. Older, bigger, angrier.

Gasping in shock, ignoring the pain, Lex opens his eyes.

"Lex?" Clark asks, almost begs. "Are you okay? No, don't try to move."

The more aware he becomes, the more the pain becomes manageable, and Lex slowly takes in their situation.

There are green studded rocks collapsed at one end of the cramped space they're in. A bit of light comes through a gap at the top of the rubble. He's on his back, his head resting on what he thinks is Clark's jacket. His friend is kneeling beside him, the ceiling of the cave barely a foot above his head. He doesn't look right. Even in the dim light, Lex can see how pale and clammy Clark's skin is, how his eyes are having trouble focusing.

Was he hurt, too?

Frowning, Lex tries to remember, but all his memories are muddled from shortly after they arrived in the caves to look at the newly uncovered runes. They were chatting about possible meanings, and Lex leaned in for a closer look, then there was a sound behind them, a scuffling noise, and Clark moaned.

Something hit him, knocking him down.

Someone.

He hit himself.

That doesn't make any sense. It wasn't him. It couldn't have been...

The gloved hand, the green stone, like the ones mixed in with the limestone that created the caves in central Kansas.

They were attacked. Lex was knocked into the wall, hitting his head. A brilliant flash of pain and then a moment of clarity before darkness. A vision before swimming eyes.

He was knocked into the wall by an older version of himself.

"Clark? What happened?" To his own ears, his voice is weak, pain-laden, so it's no surprise that, despite how ill he looks, Clark shakes his head, tries to quiet him.

"It'll be okay, I promise. He's...he's gone. The man who hit you and, and..." Voice dying away, Clark's shoulders slump in defeat and he leans against the wall, panting softly.

A second moment of clarity hits.

"The green stones are making you sick."

Numbly, Clark nods, eyes half closed, lashes brushing too pale cheeks.

"He trapped us in a cave-in, locked you in with the green stones."

The green stones. What are the green stones? No...Where do they come from? They're scattered and buried all over the county.

Clark's sick. Lex' head still hurts, his eyes keep going blurry with his certain concussion, but he can get them out of here. The stones don't effect him. He doesn't know why they hurt Clark, but if he can just move, clear them away...

Just turning onto his side seems to take hours and leaves him exhausted and groaning at the bursts of white hot agony in his head. Resting his cheek on the dirt floor, he feels something sticky in the soil, smells copper.

Blood. His head's bleeding.

"Lex, don't move," Clark begs. "You're bleeding again."

Ignoring him, Lex drags himself across the short distance to the pile of rock, biting his lip to keep in his screams with every jarring movement of his body. Simply manuevering all of two feet leaves him limp and shaking, and he forces himself to rest for a few minutes, recover enough strength to count the green stones. Most of the limestone rocks are too large for him to shift, but the green ones, all eight of them, are no bigger than a closed fist. A few are finger length and width. Above the tumbled stone is nearly a foot gap to the ceiling. If he can pull the green ones out and toss them through...

Behind him, Clark makes a sound almost like a whimper and Lex turns his head to see that the younger man's eyes are closed and he's slumped down onto the floor of the cave. Unconscious maybe.

It's up to him. 

Reaching out one shaking hand, he grabs the first one, tugs it free, takes a deep breath and tosses it.

The pain explodes again, leaving him gasping and moaning. There are tears on his face, mingling with dried blood. He tastes both on his lips.

But, there's one less green stone.

Lex thinks he passes out somewhere between the fifth and six stone, the only ones low enough to reach from his stomach. When he opens his eyes again, head swimming from pain and weakness, he's in a new position, cradled in strong but trembling arms, tucked between spread knees, his head lolling on a sweaty, clammy chest.

"Lex, you back with me?" Clark sounds a bit stronger and his grip is firm, but there's pain in his voice, and he's back with Lex, too.

Three stones left. 

Reaching out his arm, he's on the right level, but too far back, and grunts in dismay.

"I think I can hold you closer, but you'll have to be quick."

What are these rocks? Why do they affect Clark and not him? 

Frustrated at his inability to think clearly, Lex slurs out an affirmative. They need to get out, then he can try to make sense of all this. His older self, the green stones, why they're making Clark sick but not him. 

What all this is about.

Why his older self, cruel, angry, hateful, wanted Clark, innocent and young, so very young, dead.

And he will finally solve the mystery of Clark Kent.

Even concussed, there are ideas, too many of them wild but maybe not improbable flitting through his mind.

When Clark lifts him, Lex nearly passes out again. Dizzy, hurting, he reaches out weakly, grabs at a small piece of green, his fingers glancing off it. Gritting his teeth he tries again and this time succeeds. Clark's arms shake, he moans, and Lex tosses the stone through the gap.

Getting the seventh stone takes three times as long as the sixth, and the eighth even longer. As darkness sweeps over him again, Lex dimly realizes Clark is laying him down gently, arms no longer trembling and weak, skin no longer pasty.

The last thing Lex sees are two glowing red dots and then the air is filled with limestone dust as rock explodes.

*****

Soft beeping awakens Lex and he slowly takes in his environs.

The aroma of disinfectant. The stiffness of inexpensive sheets beneath him, the soft warmth of a blanket on top of him. He's propped up a bit on his back.

The pain is only a dull memory.

Hesitantly opening his eyes, he isn't surprised to find himself in the hospital. The lights are low and through the drawn blinds at the window he can see that it's night. Everything is quiet save the beeping of the machines monitoring him and the breathing of the young man sitting in a chair next to him, his head pillowed on his folded arms on the bed.

Clark's asleep, but looks completely fine, recovered from whatever was wrong.

Reaching out his fingers not attached to an IV or oxygen monitor, Lex brushes them over silky brown hair, and Clark's eyes flutter open. Blood flushes his cheeks and he jerks upright, scrubbing the back hand over the drool on his lips.

Lex finds it all too adorable and forces himself to remember that Clark's young and innocent.

And...

"Alien."

Eyes going wide, Clark stammers, "What?"

"What the older me called you, like a curse."

With the pain mostly gone, his mind is working again, his memories of the attack clearing with every second.

Time travel is real. Aliens are real. Clark is from another world. The strength and speed and ability to heal too quickly. Everything makes sense now.

Fighting to keep the accusation from his voice, Lex says, "You could have told me."

Clark swallows hard. "I...I was scared."

"Why?"

"Um...dissection?"

Attempting to roll his eyes makes that ugly pain blossom for a moment, but Lex does manage to shake his head and sigh. "Am I your friend, Clark?"

"Um, yes, of course, but...I...I don't tell anyone," he adds in a whisper, eyes dropping, fingers flexing nervously a top the sheet.

With determination, Lex reaches out and takes one of those big, soft hands, entwining their fingers. "I understand. I don't like it, but I do understand the need for secrecy, but, no more, okay Clark?"

Clark stares down at their linked hands, then looks up, a brilliant smile on his face, that suddenly fades to sorrow. "That was an older you, a you who hates me."

"I'll never hate you." But, even as he says the words, a promise, Lex can see how, if he hadn't found out the truth now, maybe in a year or five, all the secrets, the frustration of not knowing, could have driven him to turn liking to hatred. Turn...even love...

"No more secrets, Clark. We're in this together. You're right, a lot of people might fear you. My father,' he grinds out, "He'd see you as a science experiment or, worse, a potential weapon, but I won't let anyone hurt you if I can prevent it, and I'll help you keep your secret." He lets his lips quirk. "You're really bad at doing so, you know."

Clark groans. "I do know, and my dad yells at me about it all the time, but I can't just not help people."

"Have you thought about wearing a mask?"

For a moment, the younger man stares at him, then his lips twitch, too, before he chokes out a laugh. "God, could you see me in some kind of costume?"

Lex lets his eyes linger over the broadening chest, the firm thighs. "Maybe tights?"

Clark turns bright red, but just squeezes Lex' fingers, his eyes sparkling. He's just so...beautiful.

Two more years, Lex reminds his libido. Two more years, when Clark turns eighteen, though he's not about to wait that long to make clear his interest in deepening their relationship, because Clark is quickly growing out of the geeky awkward stage and some teenage girl or boy is going to see him as Lex sees hims. But, he can wait to go past hand holding and perhaps a kiss or two, because right now, despite the age of consent in Kansas being sixteen, Jonathan Kent would slaughter him if he did anything more.

And he really doesn't want to die before doing more in Clark's arms than throwing deadly green stones away from him.

Speaking of...He's going to clear the county of those nasty things and figure out how to send them to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, or maybe into the sun.

End.


End file.
